"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And He did despair, for in His omniscience, He did know that His creations had but three-fifths of the splendor of that which would be IMAO."
-No One of Consequence

"The universe is an interesting place and something to be cheery about."

She chuckled. "Does this have anything to do with your meeting with Morrigan?"

I give five to one odds she spied on us, seeing that we argued. If she was still suspicious of me, that made her suspicious of Morrigan. "In a way. She tried to recruit me for some fed task force, but that just put back into perspective what's really important. Frankly, I'm getting anxious to get back to Rikar and apply some new techniques to cleaning that place up." Grade A BS.

"So you refused Morrigan's offer?"

"Of course... and I really don't like that woman."

"Let's not gossip behind her back," Diane chided me.

"Heaven forbid."

At the police HQ, we went to work trying to figure out some new ways to find Gredler's assassin. Of course, that was chasing my own tail, but an interesting exercise nonetheless. Morrigan and Verg had taken themselves and office which had a window overlooking most of the other desks (I only got a chair next to Diane’s desk). Morrigan looked towards me a couple time (I waved back), but she had yet to speak to me today. When I saw Verg leave the office, I decided it was time to start setting up the pieces in this new game Dip and I had designed.

"You know what the assassin is going to be doing right now, Diane."

"What?"

"Scoping out the Senator's defenses."

"Where's he staying is a secret."

"A secret that the Corloni syndicate can't find out?"

Diane smiled. "So, what's your proposal?"

"We be like the killer; we head to where the Senator is and scope it out."

"Do you think we could find any clues on the perimeter of where he’s staying that Gredler's own people can't?"

"I don't care about that. I want to know his defenses, because I bet the assassin knows them too."

She laughed. "Okay, but we don't know where the Senator is."

"I bet the feds do... and Morrigan is trying to woo me."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah; it's embarrassing, really."

"It would be mean to lead her on, Rico."

"But I don't like her. Doesn't the Bible say to be mean to people you don't like?"

She giggled. "No, quite the opposite."

"Then I'll have to read it more thoroughly later." I got up and walked over to Morrigan's office, entered unannounced, and closed the door.

Morrigan tried to look at me with disinterest. "Your thingee is over there," she said, pointing to the carrying case for my automated tri-pod, "I had the blood cleaned off for you."

"Thanks; you're a doll. I was wondering if you could help me with something."

She smiled so smugly I wanted to punch her. "So, the great Rico wants my help."

I smiled back. "We are on the same side, aren't we?"

She hit a button which turned the office window opaque. She then walked over and locked the door. "What do you need?"

"I want to know where Gredler is staying so I can get a look at his normal defenses."

Morrigan walked over to her desk and took a disk out of a drawer. "Here is all that information and more."

I went to take it, but she set it down on the desk and kicked me so hard I flew back against the wall and fell to the ground. Before, I could blink, she was on top of me.

"You're smiling," she observed.

"That was quite a turn on."

She had me well pinned - and, no doubt about it, she was stronger than me.

"Rico, I think we got off on the wrong foot."

"I did shoot you when we first met, and now I killed some of your underlings... but that's just how I tell a girl I like her."

She kept an expression that was hard to read... or maybe one I just wasn't used to. "I don't think you take me seriously."

"Well, you do have me pinned - what kind of muscle-enhancements do you have?"

"MX-405, they give me eight times the strength of someone with the same muscle mass."

"So I'm less than eight-times as strong as a woman your size? I need a better exercise regime."

"Shut up." She kissed me, and... well... I kissed back. I don't know if this was some mind game trained to her by her "Lilith Organization," but she has successfully gotten my libido going; I'll give her that.

She stood up and took off her suit jacket and gun holster. She then unbuttoned and removed her blouse revealing a black bra and holding in a large chest. "There's no reason we can't be friends."

I can think of some. I looked to the door. "What about Verg?"

"Busy." She pulled off her skirt.

"Let's busy ourselves then." I shoved her back onto her desk. In one motion, I swept everything off the desk and onto the floor, my sweeping motion ending at the lamp at the edge of the desk which I grabbed, yanked it out of its socket, and threw it through the window, shattering it. I then pulled Morrigan by her panties so that she was standing and facing out the window while I grabbed the disk, my briefcase, and quickly unlocked and made my way out the door.

I wish I had a picture of the expression of the Nar Valdum police force staring at the nearly naked Morrigan standing in front of her window. Verg had come running to see what the commotion was about and was stunned speechless.

"Be careful," I told him as I punched him jokingly in the shoulder, "She's horny."

When I got to Diane, she had an expression of a mixture of shock and bemusement. "What was that about?"

"What's it look like?" I answered innocently as I glanced back to see Morrigan still standing there, trying to fathom what to do next, "Now let's get going; we have some field work to do."